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England and Wales High Court (Family Division) Decisions |
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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales High Court (Family Division) Decisions >> Goddard-Watts v Goddard-Watts (Rev 1) [2016] EWHC 3000 (Fam) (23 November 2016) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2016/3000.html Cite as: [2016] EWHC 3000 (Fam), [2017] 1 FCR 99, [2016] WLR(D) 674, [2017] 4 WLR 13, [2017] 2 FLR 114 |
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FAMILY DIVISION
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL |
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B e f o r e :
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JULIA GODDARD-WATTS |
Applicant |
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- and - |
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JAMES GODDARD-WATTS |
Respondent |
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Mr Amos QC and Mr Sear (instructed by Pinsent Masons LLP) for the Respondent
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Crown Copyright ©
Mr Justice Moylan:
Introduction
History
Set Aside
"I am not saying that the wife would have received half of this sum. I accept that the fact that the husband was only the principal beneficiary would have to be factored in, as would the source of the shares …".
History of the Hardy and Eagle Trusts
Proceedings
Financial Issues
(a) 2010 Values
"By its very nature, valuation work cannot be regarded as an exact science and the conclusions arrived at in many cases will of necessity be subjective and dependent on the exercise of individual judgement. Although my valuation is in my opinion reasonable and defensible, others, including (the husband or the wife) might wish to argue for different values."
(b) Current Capital Resources
The Companies
Submissions
"The third, namely that much of the husband's fortune was generated in the 6 years post-separation, receives no reflection because in my opinion it is inherently fallacious. The assessment of assets must be at the date of trial or appeal … In this case the reality is that the husband traded his wife's unascertained share as well as his own between separation and trial … the wife's share went on risk and she is plainly entitled to what in the event has proved to be a substantial profit. If this factor has any relevance it is within the evaluation of the husband's exceptional contribution".
Cowan was, of course, decided before the decision of Miller v Miller; McFarlane v McFarlane [2006] 1 FLR 1186. Additionally, the court's assessment of the relevance of post-separation endeavour in the application of the sharing principle has further developed since the Miller decision. Accordingly, there is a significantly altered legal landscape to that which existed when Cowan was decided.
"[40] … I think the proper analysis is that Roberts J was saying that the fund retained its matrimonial character but the wife would share unequally in the increase in value achieved by the husband alone in the period of separation.
[41] This approach is to my mind undoubtedly correct for those assets which were in place at the point of separation. They remain matrimonial property but the increase in value achieved in the period of separation may be unequally divided. I emphasise may. Obviously passive growth will not be shared other than equally, and there will be cases where on the facts even active growth will be equally shared as happened in Kan v Poon".
In dealing with this issue, Mr Pointer also submitted that the husband has had little involvement in Silverline since 2010. I have dealt with this above and have found that the husband has continued to make a substantial contribution to the business.
Determination
[43] Finally, however, it should be emphasised that the fact that there has been misrepresentation or non-disclosure justifying the setting aside of an order does not mean that the renewed financial remedy proceedings must necessarily start from scratch. Much may remain uncontentious. It may be possible to isolate the issues to which the misrepresentation or non-disclosure relates and deal only with those. A good example of this is Kingdon v Kingdon [2010] EWCA Civ 1251, [2011] 1 FLR 1409, where all the disclosed assets had been divided equally between the parties but the husband had concealed some shares which he had later sold at a considerable profit. The court left the rest of the order undisturbed but ordered a further lump sum to reflect the extent of the wife's claim to that profit. This court recently emphasised in Vince v Wyatt (Nos 1 and 2) [2015] UKSC 14, [2015] 1 WLR 1228, sub nom Wyatt v Vince [2015] 1 FLR 972 the need for active case management of financial remedy proceedings, 'which … includes promptly identifying the issues, isolating those which need full investigation and tailoring future procedure accordingly' (para [29]). In other words, there is enormous flexibility to enable the procedure to fit the case. This applies just as much to cases of this sort as it does to any other."
"[15] In a vigorous dissenting judgment, Briggs LJ explained that the husband's fraud was material to the agreement and the consent order for two reasons. First, it undermined the basis on which his shareholding had been valued and 'therefore the ability of the wife to address the proportionality of agreeing a discount below her claimed 50% … against the receipt of a larger share of the other family assets'. Secondly, it created a false basis for the wife to assume that a delayed realisation of the husband's shareholding might justify a tapered reduction in her share of the proceeds (para [30]). Once the judge had decided that the husband's fraud had undermined the parties' agreement and the consent order, that should have been the end of the matter. There were three inter-related reasons for this ..."
The former factor, namely the potential effect of the non-disclosure on the structure of the 2010 order, clearly remains a relevant issue when I am considering how to determine the wife's claim.
[36] Notwithstanding the distinction drawn by Thorpe LJ, I can well imagine cases of non-disclosure – for example where an applicant has secured a needs-based award without disclosure of a substantial asset or of an engagement to marry – in which the proper course is indeed to conduct the exercise under s 25 all over again on updated material. The same might apply to non-disclosure by a respondent which was so far-reaching as to have led the court to survey the entire financial landscape on a false basis. What I cannot accept is that the exercise will always have to be conducted again. The exercise certainly has to have been conducted. But it has been conducted; and the nature of the defect generated by the non-disclosure may – or may not – require the whole order to be set aside and the whole exercise to be conducted again.
[37] Take, then, the present case. In the exercise conducted, ultimately by consent, in 2005, what was the nature of the defect generated by the non-disclosure of the shares? The nature of the defect was the omission of a subparagraph in the part of the order which provided for the wife to receive a lump sum, namely of a subparagraph which provided for an extra, deferred, contingent element of lump sum referable to the shares. There is nothing wrong with the order dated 18 April 2005 save that it requires such an addition. There is no need to dismantle it: the need is to add to it. Indeed, in that in November 2006 the contingency arose, there is no further need to express the provision by way of a formula: the husband's net gain on the shares has been precisely quantified and whatever would have been the appropriate percentage expressed in the formula can be translated into a specific sum.
[38] I have come to the conclusion that the judge was entitled to proceed there and then to repair the defect by enlargement of the lump sum provision in the order dated 18 April 2005. The reasons for my conclusion are as follows:
(a) he had a discretion as to how best to proceed;(b) in exercise of the discretion he was required to seek to deal with the case justly, and thus in a way which was proportionate to the complexity of the issues and which would save expense and ensure expedition: r 2.51D(1) – (3) of the FPR 1991;(c) the non-disclosure was of a discrete element of the husband's assets and it generated a defect which could be cured by one simple enlargement, to be devised pursuant to the sharing principle, of provision in the order dated 18 April 2005: see [37] above;(d) the order had been fully implemented and there was no need to reverse any part of its implementation; and(e) … In the words of Thorpe LJ in Williams v Lindley, set out at [35] above, the procedure needed to reflect the degree of the husband's turpitude."
"18. Thus, with respect to Baroness Hale, I believe that the true proposition is that the importance of the source of the assets may diminish over time. Three situations come to mind:
(a) Over time matrimonial property of such value has been acquired as to diminish the significance of the initial contribution by one spouse of non-matrimonial property.(b) Over time the non-matrimonial property initially contributed has been mixed with matrimonial property in circumstances in which the contributor may be said to have accepted that it should be treated as matrimonial property or in which, at any rate, the task of identifying its current value is too difficult.(c) The contributor of non-matrimonial property has chosen to invest it in the purchase of a matrimonial home which, although vested in his or her sole name, has – as in most cases one would expect – come over time to be treated by the parties as a central item of matrimonial property.
The situations described in (a) and (b) above were both present in White. By contrast, there is nothing in the facts of the present case which logically justifies a conclusion that, as the long marriage proceeded, there was a diminution in the importance of the source of the parties' entire wealth, at all times ring-fenced by share certificates in the wife's sole name which to a large extent were just kept safely and left to reproduce themselves and to grow in value."
There are no circumstances present in this case which diminish the importance of the source of the shares. The fact that the husband has benefited from them, largely since the parties' separated, does not justify them being shared between the parties.
"the non-disclosure was of a discrete element of the husband's assets and it generated a defect which could be cured by one simple enlargement, to be devised pursuant to the sharing principle, of provision in the" 2010 order.
Or to adapt what Lady Hale said in Sharland, it is fair in this case to isolate the resources which were not disclosed and to deal only with those, subject to one small caveat.
[12] There has been some debate at the hearing of this appeal as to the nature of the central question which, in this not unusual situation, the court hearing an application for ancillary relief should seek to determine. Superficially the question is easily framed as being whether the trust is a financial 'resource' of the husband for the purpose of s 25(2)(a) of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 (the 1973 Act). But what does the word 'resource' mean in this context? In my view, when properly focused, that central question is simply whether, if the husband were to request it to advance the whole (or part) of the capital of the trust to him, the trustee would be likely to do so. In other cases the question has been formulated in terms of whether the spouse has real or effective control over the trust. At times I have myself formulated it in that way. But, unless the situation is one in which there is ground for doubting whether the trustee is properly discharging its duties or would be likely to do so, it seems to me on reflection that such a formulation is not entirely apposite. On the evidence so far assembled in the present case, as in most cases, there seems no reason to doubt that the duties of the trustee are being, and will continue to be, discharged properly."